This invention relates to high temperature electric burners and more particularly to an electric burner for evaporating, curing and incinerating noxious and volatile gases in an oven so that the gases exhausting from the oven are at substantially clean levels.
In, for example, ovens for processing enamel coated wire, extremely high temperatures must be generated to oxidize the volatile gases derived from the solvent carrier. In the wire coating process, the coating is disolved or suspended in a liquid solvent or carrier and the wire is passed through this bath to obtain an even coating. Consequently, a wet film is present on the wire which thereafter is passed through the oven to evaporate the solvent or carrier and to cure the remaining solid coating material.
It has been known for some time that separate control of the evaporation and curing processes is required to obtain wire at a high processing volume with good results. To this end the prior art ovens provide separate evaporating and curing zones, the wire first passing through the evaporating zone and heated by gas entering adjacent the wire inlet, and then through the curing zone and heated by gas entering adjacent the outlet, the gas exiting the work chamber through a common outlet between the zones. Since obnoxious, if not noxious, vapor and fumes from the solvent are released by the process, the gases leaving the zones are recirculated and routed to either a combustion chamber and through a catalytic burner, or to the flame generated by a high temperature natural gas burner for a sufficient period of time to oxidize the volatile vapors and fumes. Catalytic oxidizer ovens are illustrated in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,351,329 (Thomas); 3,183,605 (Argue et al); 3,183,604 (Stauffer); 3,106,386 (Harris); 2,921,778 (Ruff) and 3,265,033 (Touze et al). Ovens constructed with a non-catalytic oxidizing natural gas fuel burner are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,810,736 (Dumas) and 4,303,387 (Burke et al).
However, in many areas of the world, including many of the developing nations, natural gas and oil are not readily or economically available. Since the available energy sources are utilized in the generation of electricity, electricity in such locations is available for use in industrial processes. At this time no effective electrical burners capable of oxidizing volatile vapors and fumes such as those released from the wire enameling process are available.